Paddy Ashdown Quotes

Diplomats are only useful in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

You aren't going to be successful as a diplomat if you don't understand the strategic context in which you are actually negotiating. It is not deal making. It's not.

I believe in much more diplomacy, not less.

It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

By the way, if you do your job on behalf of your country, you have meetings where you put your position forward strongly, and the other side does the same thing. And I've had plenty of meetings in my career that really were heated, people yelling at each other.

I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy.

Personal pique is not a foreign policy.

Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice Doggie!” till you can find a rock.

The art of diplomacy is to take your humiliations in private.

Diplomacy is the art of letting somebody else have your way.

Part of the genius of diplomacy is to resolve issues before crises come along.

Negotiations are the most essential tool of statecraft.

Cool, realistic diplomats are prepared to try to negotiate with any type of regime whenever the national interest calls for it; the last thing that should ever be done to turn emotional or "demonize" another foreign leader no matter how nasty he may be.

No two men ever devised plans of action to accomplish a particular object without finding that there were differences in their plans. That is peculiarly the case in international affairs.

There is nothing fast or easy about diplomacy. I have no illusions about that.

A mercurial plan of action may have worked in the Trump Organization board room, but it's a disastrous tactic in foreign affairs.

I know the pros and cons of not being diplomatic.

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

In an ideological age, diplomacy may seem weak and prosaic. But sometimes it is all we have.

Force is not inevitable. Diplomacy is still the desired means. Pressure is an element of the means.

I'm simply saying that there are advantages in sending a skilled diplomat who can always say, 'I'll get back to you on that, Mr. Minister'.

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

Nobody's ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

A constructive approach to diplomacy doesn't mean relinquishing one's rights. It means engaging with one's counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared objectives.